


Mango Mornings

by lhommedepomme



Category: H2O: Just Add Water
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Australia, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fanfiction, Mermaids, Season/Series 01, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lhommedepomme/pseuds/lhommedepomme
Summary: AU. Rikki hates a lot of things, one of them being a quick-witted swimmer who talks more than she should. But mother nature has a funny way of throwing the things you hate hard into your face, and Rikki has to learn how to put up with this one.
Relationships: Emma Gilbert/Byron, Lewis McCartney/Cleo Sertori, Rikki Chadwick/Emma Gilbert
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Mango Mornings

Rikki didn’t like a lot of things. It’d been like that forever. Wailed over baths as a baby, screamed over breakfast as a child, cursed out laundry as a teenager. There were a lot of things she didn’t enjoy. There was homework and there was football. There was fishing and there were motorbikes. There was tea and there was nail polish. There were lots of stupid things. There were lots of stupid people; yet, she couldn’t come to terms with the knot in her stomach when she rammed into the shoulder of an Emma Gilbert for the first time.

The knot was twisted, burnt, and sore — like an old bruise on your knee you couldn’t remember getting. And she mistook it for hatred. Anger. Resentment. Hatred and anger and resentment because Emma’s stupid hair was in a even braid down her back, her almond shaped eyes were squinting from the sunlight, and her orangey perfume had clouded Rikki’s head. 

So she hated her. Easy. Like a snap of fingers. Like stealing a sucker from the candy store. Rikki’s eyes had dipped into slits, her fists curled, and before she could spit an insult onto the shiny girl’s shoes, Emma had fired, “ _Watch where you’re going_.”

Rikki’s face fumed. 

Watching where _she_ was going? Watch where _Rikki_ was going? Rikki had been heading in the right direction. She’d been striding down the correct side of the walk. She’d been checking her phone, obviously, because her dad said he’d be calling at some point ‘round noon — but that shouldn’t have been a problem because she was turning the corner into the school’s East wing on the far right, and _Emma_ was the one who’d turned on the left, which was the _wrong_ _way_. 

Rikki stood for a moment, unaware Emma had disappeared until she took a few slow blinks. _And a deep breath in_ , she told herself, grabbing a strand of hair that’d hit her nose and shoving it behind her red ear. 

She marched to her locker, emptying her book bag into the metal cubby and unwrapping a mint from her pocket. 

_Watch where you’re going_. _Watch where you’re going_...

It made her shoulders shiver.

Rikki slid her bag back onto her shoulder and made way from the campus, deciding she wanted to get as far away from the stupid school property as she could. Her free period only lasted an hour, so she headed in the opposite direction of home, to the strip mall near the town center. And by the canal was the stupid JuiceNet Café, which served mediocre smoothies and juice that was honestly too sweet, in Rikki’s completely unbiased opinion. 

The radio buzzed out a strange pop song Rikki didn’t recognize, and she sat down at the bar with an everlasting scowl. It carved two little marks into her cheeks, and she found herself in a puddle of self pity. She hated it. The music. The café. The school. The everything. She picked at some dirt from under her nail, letting the AC ease into her shoulders and smooth out the tension that’d silently built up her spine.

“Juice?”

Her head shot forward, meeting the brown stare of a middle-aged man who had sun spots up and down his face. He was holding a plastic menu. Rikki took it from him and skimmed the list. 

Mango Morning was the only one that didn’t sound repulsive, so she ordered that and slumped her chin into her palm, eyes glancing over the posters, the picture frames, and some freakishly large surfboard that hung from the wall. He made it right in front of her, made a joke about the blender, poured it into a tall green glass, then sprinkled coconut shavings on the top.

Rikki bit her tongue before she had a chance to tell him how horribly repulsed she was by anything coconut. She waited for him to turn his back, then picked them off and dropped them to the floor. 

She spent the next twenty minutes flipping through a week old gossip column, unfamiliar to the names, doodling stick figures of men burning in flames in the margins. It was relaxing up until the beads of the entrance shuttered, and she tossed a dazed look over her shoulder, watching with a dry throat as a group of teenagers entered. No doubt from her school, but their faces all looked the same as any other: sweaty, tanned, in desperate need of sun lotion — Rikki continued to draw as she finished her drink, then scrounged her bag for a note and some coins as she slid off her stool. 

“Feel better, lass,” hummed the man, scooping her change into his hand and sending her a smile. 

“Yeah,” responded Rikki, her way of goodbye. She turned on the heel of her chuck, starting for the exit when and stopped and said, “I hate coconut.”

The man’s brows met. “You hate…”

“Coconut,” she said. “I think coconut’s the absolute worst food in the world, and I think you should never serve it to me again.”

He blinked. She waited. He closed the register and said, “I won’t forget.”

Rikki deemed this a good reply, and she left the café, somewhat eager to return to get her final class over with. Then she’d walk home, go swim, shower, nap, eat, sleep. It was a late summer routine that she wouldn’t let school ruin. And she’d been picking up her biology textbook from her locker, wondering if her dad had finished the leftover Italian, when her back pocket vibrated, and she jolted against the metal, accidentally slamming the door shut. 

Her phone screen flashed DAD.

“Hello?” she answered, checking her watch and wandering down the walkway. The period hadn’t quite ended yet. 

Her dad’s voice was ruffled, like he was leaning his heavy beard right against the speaker. “ _Hey, Ri, it’s later than I said, I know. You’re not in class, are ya?”_

“Got two minutes.” She started up a stairwell.

“ _Good_ ,” he said. Paused. Rikki stopped halfway, hand pressed firm on the simmering rail. He cleared his throat. “ _Well, I’m still in the city… uh, Jeff’s got this piece he wants me to look at… and, I_ …”

 _Would rather spend the evening gawking over tires than with your daughter._ Rikki suppressed an eye roll. “Can’t make it back in time for dinner?”

“ _Probably not_ …”

She squeezed her eyes shut, chest rising. “Not to worry. I’ve got plans, anyway.”

“ _Plans? Like, throwing rocks at little kids?_ ”

“Shut up,” she grinned, shaking her hand and reaching the second floor. “I’m fine. Really. I’ll water the plants.”

“ _No,_ ” he said quick, tone shrill. “ _No — Rikki — don’t go within six feet of those plants, d’you hear me?_ ”

She held the mobile a ways away from her face and blew into the speaker. “Can’t” — she whooshed — “hear” — and again — “wind is” — her cheeks flushed — “crazy.”

“ _Rik_ —“

She snapped the phone shut, humming a song she didn’t recognize, turning into the North corridor, where the science and maths courses were taught. Rikki slipped the device back into her pocket and hung by the doorway, crossing her arms and peeking into the tiny window every few seconds. 

The bell rung, and she stepped back, letting the chattering students file out before entering, finding her assigned seat in the back and dropping her bag to the floor. It didn’t take long for the classroom to fill, and it was only once the bell rang again when she realized her teacher stayed put at his desk, talking something over with a slender, fair-skinned girl… 

“...thank you so much.” Her voice was timid among the mindless conversations spiraling the room. 

And when she turned, eyes painted the same clear skied blue, cheeks pink from the congested laboratory, Rikki’s humming halted. She stared at the retreating student, who tucked her review neatly under one arm, a brilliant red “A” gleaming beneath the artificial light, and she exited the room with a trail of perfume lingering by the door. 

“Are you okay?”

Rikki turned her head to the girl next to her, whose eyes were glazed in curiosity, and Rikki hadn’t a clue why before following her stare to her hands, where a snapped pencil lay, splinters of wood in a pile on the desk. 

Rikki swept them off and took out a new pencil. “Just… thinking about the exam.”

The girl nodded, more than willing to let it end with that, and Rikki found herself staring at the floor for the entire lesson, unable to concentrate on the anatomy of a frog.


End file.
